One dose toxicokinetics of aconitine in rats

ABSTRACT

Aconitine is considered a highly toxic substance, it is rapidly absorbed and metabolized and hence the importance of the presence of a sensitive, simple and non expensive method for its detection and quantification in biological samples. The old methods of aconitine detection reported lack both sensitivity and selectivity. Highly sensitive and sophisticated techniques were recently reported for the detection and characterization of aconitine in traditional Chinese and Japanese medicines. Although these recent techniques are very sensitive and specific, they are highly expensive, complicated and not available everywhere in most laboratories even in the developed countries. In the present study, a simple and sensitive photometric method was improved and made suitable for the detection and quantification of aconitine in biological samples. This study is conducted on two groups of male and female adult albino rats. Each group consists of 25 animals and divided equally into 5 subgroups. Each rat in the two groups were given sublethal doses of [1.4 mg] aconitine intragastrically. The developed photomeric method was in the assessment of the toxicokinetic parameters of aconitine [AUC, Kcl ,T[1/2],TBC and Vd] in liver, heart, stomach and urine of male and female albino rats after 1, 2, 5, 8 and 10 hours using the spectrophtometer. Sex difference was observed. The results of the present study revealed that the toxicokinetic parameters [AUC and T[1/2]] of aconitine were more significantly faster in male than female rats, however Kcl, TBC and V d were significantly lower in male rats. The detection of aconitine level was significantly increased in the liver, heart and urine of male rats compared to female rats throughout the period of the study except after 10 hours in urine and 5 hours in the heart a significant decrease was detected by the proposed method in comparison to a previous [control] method. In conclusion, the developed method of aconitine analysis is very sensitive and non expensive. It depends on the formation of molecular charge transfer [CT] molecule between the cobalt - aconitine chelate as an electron donor and chloroform [CHCL3] as an acceptor. Sex difference must be also put into consideration during the detection and assessment of aconitine toxicokinetic